The latest issue (3/2019) of the “Communist Review” (KOMEP), the Communist Party of Greece’s (KKE) political and theoretical journal, organ of the Central Committee, includes an extraordinary interview with two of the Party’s candidates for the European Parliament elections; Makis Papadopoulos and Kostas Papadakis. Below you can read – translated into english- an excerpt of Kostas Papadakis’s answer in the question “aren’t there issues for joint action of the communists with social democracy in the wake of the danger of rise of the far-right and fascism?”.

Kostas Papadakis:

“The various calls “against fascism and the far-right” of the European social democracy and in Greece of the new social democracy of SYRIZA and the older one of PASOK, not only do not consist a response to the far-right and fascism but, on the contrary they rather consist an element of their strengthening. Because there forces have a leading role over time in the promotion of the barbaric anti-people policy of the EU that feds the fascists and the far-right. They are forces of the decisive support of the profitability of the monopolies, of industrialists and shipowners, they are the ones who provide bonuses to all these powers, thus constituting a useful reserve of the bourgeois political system.

SYRIZA, as well as other supposedly “progressive” forces that in the pre-electoral period “raise dust” against fascism and the far-right, have shown not just a dangerous tolerance towards the far-right but have been proved close governmental partners of them, in close co-operation with PASOK which, together with ND were co-governing with LAOS, while SYRIZA was co-governing with the far-right nationalists of ANEL for four years. At the same time, the government of SYRIZA were receiving praise by the U.S. Secretary of State and by nationalist Trump, for being the most dedicated partner in serving the U.S. interests.

Similarly, such partnerships are also taking place in the pre-electoral period, with far-right wingers participating in the lists of SYRIZA, PASOK/KINAL, ND, in local administration, with joint invitations and photos in national anniversaries, as well as the provocation of the SYRIZA government to announce changes in the Penal Code thus leading to “softer” sentences for the leadership of Golden Dawn.

The social democratic forces of SYRIZA, in the name of “left and progress”, implement and support the most brutal anti-people policy of the EU, that leads to the refutation of expectations and the shift of worker-popular strata to far-right fascist forces. This is demonstrated by the experience everywhere in the world, in Italy where the refutation of Renzi led to nationalist Salvini and, even before, from Prodi to Berlusconi, in France by the so-called “left” government of Jospin to Sarkozy or in Brazil from the government of social democrats Lula and Russef to the far-right winger Bolsonaro.

The latest elections in Spain reveal that the interchange of bourgeois parties, the fake dilemmas and the refutation of hopes lead to the strengthening of far-right parties. What has been proved in Spain recently is that, for example, the strengthening of the social democrats did not block the road for the rise of the far-right Vox party.

After all, SYRIZA and it’s “progressive” allies in Greece and the EU support the further militarization of the EU, its deeper engagement in intgerventions and wars thus transforming Greece into a base of interventions and wars, while they literally implement the barbaric policy of the EU against refugees and immigrants. This policy, including dangerous agreements such as the Prespes Treaty, consists the proper ground for the strengthening of nationalist and racist forces showing hatred among the people.

SYRIZA and its allies support and embellish the EU, the official ideology of which is anti-communism, the provocative equation of communism with the monster of fascism and the reproduction of the “two-extremes” theory, using the tool of the revising the historical truth and its re-writing for the interests of the big capital, especially targeting the youth. Within this context, a new round of persecutions, based on false charges, against members and cadres of the Communist Party continues in Poland, even after their acquittal. In a few days, on May 9th, the EU will try again to present the Day of the Great Anti-Fascist Victory of the People as “Europe’s Day”, aiming to erase from the people’s memory the enormous contribution of the USSR in Nazism’s defeat.

The response to fascism and the far-right can be given by the people fighting against the capitalist system that feds them, for the people’s modern rights and needs, against the capital and the parties which support the exploitative system. Today, the progressive people need to take into account that the actual dividing line, both in Greece and in the EU, is the one between the monopolies and the people, or between the working class and the big capital, between Greece and EU of monopolies and Greece and Europe of socialism.

That is why the weakening and isolation of the Golden Dawn fascists presupposes the decisive and all-round strengthening of the KKE everywhere, in the people and in all ballots.”